60199616-flight-to-freedom-african-runaways-and-maroons-in-the-americas

Negotiations and Treaties
267
thirty Blacks whom the colonial government in the Dominican Republic
recruited to ferret out Lemba, a much-feared Maroon leader in the midsixteenth
century. They were chosen for their dexterity and abilities as trackers
and are credited with slaying or apprehending most of Lemba’s followers,
one of them killing as many as nine of these Maroons over an eighteenmonth
span (Esteban Deive 1989, 52). In 1795, when Maroons in Demerara
were attempting to forge alliances with the servile population, some of whom
were growing restless and rising up against their overlords, the colonial state
offered Blacks who would join the expeditionary force their freedom for
faithful service (Thompson 1987, 145). The Black Rangers were one of the
few servile groups that received their freedom (though provisionally) before
undertaking service for the authoritarian state. 3
While the slaveholding states commonly included enslaved persons as
members of Maroon-hunting parties, they did not always promise them freedom.
In the last quarter of the sixteenth century, the city of Lima purchased
two enslaved persons, Pedro Galán and Francisco Jolofo, from their overlords,
to act as rural scouts. The price was very high, since they were deemed
to be among the best scouts and quite knowledgeable about the areas around
Lima – particularly Galán, who had once been a Maroon leader. The town
council believed that they would be valuable assets in understanding how the
Maroons operated and detecting their hideouts. They were to be paid no
salaries or bounties, unlike free people, who would have had to be paid both,
and apparently no promise of freedom was held out to them. In the end, they
turned out to be a bad investment, because they were often hospitalised as a
result of the wounds that they suffered in encounters with Maroons, they
used their authority to commit thefts and other crimes, and they were generally
arrogant and inefficient. The city tried desperately to get rid of them, but
up to 1598 Jolofo, at least, remained in the city’s service as a scout (Bowser
1974, 205–6). The Black Shots of Jamaica were an outstanding example of
servile cohorts who were not guaranteed freedom for faithful service. But
many of them deserted, either joining established Maroon settlements or
going off on their own (Campbell 1990, 69, 73, 81, 86).
Maroons hated Blacks who joined expeditions against them as much as
they hated the White plantation personnel. Indeed, some writers claim that
they hated them even more because they had broken faith with their
brethren, had ransomed their integrity for their freedom at the expense of the
Black community (see Porter 1932, 345) and sometimes joined the expeditions